Press

GameProWorld.com Teams with Epinions.com to Launch
a Co-Branded Online Gaming Community

SAN FRANCISCO — 03/14/2000 — IDG Games Media Group, the world's largest interactive entertainment information provider for multiplatform gaming enthusiasts and publisher of GamePro magazine, the world's largest multiplatform gaming magazine, and GameProWorld.com, the world's premier entertainment destination for the Y-Generation, today announced a co-branding relationship with Epinions.com(SM).

Epinions.com, an online buying guide that offers unbiased consumer reviews, is hosting a co-branded site that will allow GameProWorld.com's growing online gaming community to share its opinions about the most and least popular video and PC games on the market. By sharing their opinions, Epinions.com members expose the good, and the bad — and then get paid for sharing their expertise. "Our relationship with Epinions.com will allow GameProWorld.com's growing online community to develop valuable user generated content," said John F. Rousseau, President/CEO of IDG Games Media Group and Publisher of GamePro magazine. "For more than 10 years, GamePro has been delivering respected and authoritative reviews that the most avid multiplatform gamers crave. This relationship will provide hard-core gamers with precisely the right online platform to share their enthusiasm for games."

A recent Advertising Age article dated January 17, 2000, named GameProWorld.com the No. 1 gaming Web site for reaching the Y-Generation. GameProWorld.com provides nearly 1 million unique visitors a month (according to Double-Click, December 1999) with up-to-the-minute news, reviews, previews, cheats, and codes for the latest multiplatform games, as well as in-depth hardware section and complete entertainment coverage of music, movies, comics, and more.

"This relationship with GameProWorld.com will give gamers a community they can truly call their own," said Naval Ravikant, CEO of Epinions.com. "With high quality content and the ability to share useful information on over 2,500 gaming products, our co-branded site will be a huge win for gamers — especially the Y-Generation of teen gamers."

About IDG Games Media Group:

IDG Games Media Group, located in San Francisco, CA, is the world's largest interactive entertainment provider for multiplatform gaming enthusiasts and produces GamePro magazine, GameProWorld.com, and the IDG Games Media Group Industry White Paper. The IDG Games Media Group is a division of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading information technology media and research company.

About IDG:

IDG Games Media Group is a division of IDG, the world's leading IT media, research and exposition company. IDG publishes more than 290 computer magazines and newspapers and 4,000 book titles and offers online users the largest network of technology-specific sites around the world through IDG.net (http://www.idg.net), which comprises more than 250 targeted Web sites in 55 countries. IDG is also a leading producer of 168 computer-related expositions worldwide, and provides IT market analysis through 49 offices in 42 countries worldwide. Company information is available at http://www.idg.com.

About Epinions.com

Epinions.com (www.epinions.com) helps people help each other make better buying decisions. It is an online buying guide that offers brutally honest consumer reviews on over 100,000 products and services. Epinions.com also offers links to the Web's best professional reviews and shopping resources. Founded in May 1999 by Internet veterans from Yahoo!, Netscape and @Home, Epinions.com has received financing from Benchmark Capital, August Capital, Goldman Sachs, Dell Computer Corporation and Bowman Capital. The company has more than 90 employees and is headquartered in Mountain View, California.